OpenAI Expects to Have 220 Million Paid Subscribers by 2030

OpenAI reportedly expects ChatGPT to have at least 220 million paid subscribers by 2030, up from 35 million today.

The artificial intelligence (AI) startup also projects that the percentage of weekly users of the AI assistant who become paid subscribers will grow to 8.5% by 2030, up from 5% currently, Reuters reported Wednesday (Nov. 26), citing a paywalled article by The Information.

OpenAI expects about 20% of its revenue to come from new products related to shopping and advertising, according to the report. For example, the personal shopping assistant for ChatGPT that was released this week could enable monetization through ads or commissions, the report said.

It was reported Nov. 3 that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the company is doing “well more” than $13 billion in revenue. That figure has been widely reported, but Altman told the BG2Pod podcast that OpenAI is doing “well more revenue than that” and that the company’s revenue is growing steeply.

Asked by one of the podcast’s hosts if OpenAI could reach $100 billion in revenue in 2028 or 2029, Altman said, “How about ’27?”

In August, Nick Turley, head of product at OpenAI, said that ChatGPT was on track to reach 700 million weekly active users, up from 500 million at the end of March.

“Every day, people and teams are learning, creating, and solving harder problems,” Turley wrote in an Aug. 4 post on X. “Big week ahead. Grateful to the team for making ChatGPT more useful and delivering on our mission to everyone can benefit from AI.”

OpenAI also has a growing number of business customers. The company said on Nov. 5 that it now has more than 1 million business customers around the world and that this makes it “the fastest-growing business platform in history.”

That figure includes all organizations that pay OpenAI for business use, whether through ChatGPT for Work or through direct consumption of the company’s models via its developer platform.

“Our enterprise momentum is fueled in part by consumer adoption,” OpenAI said in a Nov. 5 blog post. “With more than 800 million weekly users already familiar with ChatGPT, adoption and ROI within businesses is realized more rapidly — pilots are shorter and rollouts face less friction.”

For all PYMNTS AI coverage, subscribe to the daily AI Newsletter.